


Six, No Less

by Pteropoda (SilentP)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, Dead Cybertron, Established Relationship, F/F, Found Family, Main POV Elita One, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-10-25 22:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17734154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentP/pseuds/Pteropoda
Summary: If Elita thought, hard, she could pull up uncorrupted memories of a life before this from the depths of her processor. There had been something worth fighting for, once—a home, a cause, a Prime. And before that, there had been a grand world, full of ‘formers and Towers and movement. Those files were compressed to the point of uselessness now. Memories of the dead had little place in scrounging for survival.





	1. The Roses of Pieria

**Author's Note:**

> Like every multichapter fic of mine, this one has been hanging around in my head for a long time. Aside from a general urge to write something focusing on Elita's team and what 4 million years on Cybertron must have done to them, this one's inspiration was wondering how the G1 episode _The Search for Alpha Trion_ had gone differently. (With a bit less damsel in distress, in other words). February seemed like the appropriate time to start posting it. 
> 
> As always, there's no set update schedule, but I plan to see it through to completion. I hope you enjoy!

Boring, boring, _boring._

Moonracer picked her way over broken roads and scrambled up mounds of rubble with the ease of long practice. At this point, she thought moodily, she could probably climb better than she could drive. She hadn’t had the open space or the energy to use her alt mode since Elita’s team had fled their last base. And she hadn’t had the energy for a joyride since long before the Ark…

Moonracer’s foot nearly slipped off the corner she’d wedged it into and she refocused her attention onto maneuvering. There was no time for nostalgia when she was out in the open like this.

 _This_ hill of rubble was one that Moonracer and the others had picked over eons ago, but she kept an optic out for any stray bits of metal anyway. Just because this mission wasn’t about scavenging for supplies didn’t mean she’d pass up any spare shinies that got turned up. The team could always do with more fuel pumps and rust removal gel and other dealios.

She didn’t exactly slide down the other side of the rubble embankment, but let a few bounding strides take her from great plate to beam to the relative flatness of the ground. There was no need for the rush, but it was good to stretch her legs a little, before she’d be crammed back into the tiny bunker and forced to share a berth to recharge.

Back on the ground now, Moonracer slowed her pace. If Shockwave’s drones kept to their timetables (and the drones always kept to their timetables), there ought to be one canvassing this area soon. That was, if Lancer’s predictive model was accurate, and Shockwave hadn’t changed anything. But that was why Moonracer was out here, and why she was—no really!—being stealthy.

“Drone babysitting,” she muttered to herself in disgust as she scanned the area. She’d come to this particular section because the rubble of the collapsed buildings made hundreds of bot-sized pockets where she might squeeze in and observe the drone’s search and scan patterns safely, but now that she was here, she cast around with a grimace.

Things must have settled since the last time she’d given this area a proper scan. The piles were looking a little more… flat than she remembered. Some of them had even started to crumble downwards into pits where the substructure of Cybertron’s surface was starting to buckle under the weight. The hiding places she could spot were big, too, obvious enough that the drone would be sure to catch her in them.

As she scanned the terrain, Moonracer’s attention was caught by a spire jutting out from the surrounding wreckage. It was the skeletal remnants of some building, either disintegrated to its struts over time or never completed before the war.

It didn’t look particularly sturdy, but it was _tall_ —the perfect sniper’s nest. Certainly taller than an energy-conserving drone would try and climb or scan. All Moonracer needed to do was get up there and find a decent perch.

The metal was tarnished and even beginning to oxidize, but it felt solid under her hands. She didn’t bother to hunt for handholds—if this beam was to hold her weight, then she wouldn’t find any sections rusted out enough for her to grip. Instead she looped fingers around the edges of the I-beam, braced her feet, and began to jackrabbit her way upwards.

“This would be so much easier if I had magna clamps,” she muttered, as she hauled herself onto what seemed like a stable section of floor, though it was more like a web of horizontal cross-beams. A couple of testing steps found it solid, if creaky, and she picked her way over to a joint where she could disguise her silhouette.

She’d just settled in and was ready for a long and boring stretch of what amounted to sentry duty when the landscape in front of her was lit up in stark relief. The heavy thrum that filled the air startled her so badly she nearly fell, and she had to cling to the pylons, which seemed to be catching the vibrations and magnifying them through her frame.

The lights seemed to be behind her. Moonracer turned, dialing down the sensitivity of her optics to keep the light from blinding her, and her jaw dropped open.

Before her eyes, a beam of light was extending up from Shockwave’s tower, splitting the sky like a spear.

“Oooooooh no,” Moonracer breathed. “Oh _frag._..”

-

There was nothing like a round of monitor duty to remind Elita how still Cybertron now was. The silence pressed down on her as she sat in front of their meager setup of screens, and it pressed heavily on her audials. The only thing to disturb the quiet was the faint hum of the equipment and the occasional creak from her chair as she shifted in place. Tucked away underground as their base was, she couldn’t expect to hear much from the surface. She’d chosen this location for their most recent base precisely because of the security being deep underground provided them, but it meant they had to rely on their perimeter sensors to inform them of anything happening above. She’d been willing to take the risk for the increased security. It was worth it.

It didn’t make sitting alone in the quiet any less eerie.

Instead of straining her audials, Elita was trying to keep her attention focused on the monitors. The camera feeds were low-quality and snowy with static, but one of Shockwave’s drones was working its way through a grid search in the next sector over, and she wanted to make sure it didn’t deviate from the usual pattern.

A quiet beep from the console made her tense, but a quick glance at another monitor revealed a familiar flash of blue plating waiting by the door. A moment later, a second ping followed from the console—Chromia’s ident.

With a few keytaps, Elita released the door lock. Moments later she could hear it grind open, then closed again.

“Firestar better find some oil for that thing,” Chromia said. Even speaking quietly, she broke the solemn spell that solitude had cast over the little bunker. Elita let her shoulders relax and glanced away from the monitors to look over her second-in-command. Chromia looked no worse for the wear, but she’d been out checking the perimeter, a task that usually took much more of the shift than this.

Chromia grimaced in response to Elita’s inquisitive look. “Moonracer reported in.”

An unscheduled report, of enough note that Chromia had decided to abandon her current task to deliver it. Elita turned away from the monitors entirely to fix her attention on Chromia. “And?”

“According to her, there’s been some sort of activity at the Tower.”

“What kind of activity?”

Chromia shrugged. “She wasn’t sure,” she said. A smile sharpened the edges of her expression. “Which makes me think it might actually be important.”

Elita, well familiar with Chromia’s bladed sense of humor, just nodded for her to continue.

“According to her, the entire tower lit up. She was at a bad angle to see anything else, but apparently the entire thing was shining like a beacon.”  

“No other activity?” Elita asked. She glanced toward the screen—the drone was still on the path it should have been, slowly plodding along a sector away—and stood from her chair, taking a few steps away from the monitor. She wanted to pace, but the space was too small to do that without taking a dizzying number of turns. Shockwave had his fortress and a corresponding stockpile of energon, but even he didn’t have enough to waste on just anything. “The spacebridge.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Chromia nodded. She stood akimbo, her fists tight as she watched Elita. “How long has it been since the last time?”

“Long enough that I was sure it had broken,” Elita muttered. “Or that Shockwave had run out of energon stockpiles for it.”

“So if he’s testing it now…”

Any hint of the grin had vanished, and Chromia’s mouth was set in a thin, tight line. Elita shook her helm, pressed a clenched fist against her chin. “He may have a new goal in mind, but it’s been a million orbital periods since Shockwave did anything with that bridge. It seems more likely a Decepticon outpost finally made contact. There were a few we knew of before the exodus whose status was unconfirmed.” She looked toward the console, where the screens were more static than view. “It’s possible we haven’t picked up on some of Shockwave’s transmissions.”

“We picked up his last broadcast no problem,” Chromia said, her frown deepening. “And that was just the usual shouting into the black for Decepticons to respond. You think our equipment’s died since then?”

“It’s always possible,” Elita said. She tapped one of the dented corners, and tilted her helm toward the monitor screens. “Nothing we have works like it should, anymore.”

Chromia grumbled, her shoulders tensed, but she nodded. “Greenlight could find out. Should we get her up?” 

Elita glanced to the left of the console, where a doorway led to the berthroom. It wasn’t much more than a closet, and there wasn’t enough space in there for anything more than a berth. Greenlight’s pale colors were barely visible past the yellow and purple bulk of Lancer’s armor.

“I’ll do it,” she said, stepping closer. “You should check the monitors, see if that drone’s still moving through sector L2. We might need to move, after this, and I don’t want any unpleasant surprises. Tell Moonracer to hold position and keep observing.”

Chromia muttered a curse, but Elita could hear the monitor chair creak as her second-in-command settled into it. “Already done. Should I send Firestar her way?”

“No, let her keep scavenging. We’ll need whatever she can find.”

“Primus, isn’t that the truth.”

Greenlight’s optics lit the moment Elita touched her frame. She watched the smaller ‘former stiffen before her attention flicked upward. “Oh,” she said, shakily. “Elita. What is it?”

“Sorry for waking you,” Elita said, patting her shoulder. “We need you to take a look at the interstellar radio receiver.”

Greenlight began to disentangle herself from Lancer. Elita heard the _click_ of a disconnecting cable. “It’s okay, Lancer lent me some processing power, so I’m all defragged,” she said. “Should I wake her up? She still needs the charge…Why do you need me to look at it?”

“No, let her rest.” Elita stepped back to let Greenlight wobble her way over Lancer. “We think we’ve missed some communication from the Tower, so we need to see if it’s because of our equipment.”

“They—oh, _no.”_ Greenlight hurried toward the console, her mouth falling open in dismay. “What happened? Elita, are we—“

“Pump the brakes there, Greenlight,” Chromia interrupted, stopping her with a hand to her chestplate. “We’re not compromised yet, far as we know. We think Shockwave is doing something with his spacebridge, but Moonracer hasn’t reported any further activity yet. We just need to know if we’re missing something.”

“You think the spacebridge was activated?” Greenlight asked, her fingers clicking slightly as she laced them together. “I think I can find out if it actually was.”

“You think?” Elita asked, stepping forward.

Greenlight looked toward her. “I think… yes. We have all the parts I need to construct a detector. I’d need to be close to the bridge to do it, but… if we get there in enough time I could even tell you how long it was open, and if anything came through it.”

Elita exchanged a glance with Chromia, who nodded. “We’ll prioritize that. Can you set it up to monitor constantly?”

“I should be, yes,” Greenlight said, nodding quickly. “I think we can set it up to ping our system here if it detects any fluctuations, too. I’ll have to cannibalize the radiation detectors, but there hasn’t been a detonation in so long that it shouldn’t be a problem. We probably can’t feed back all the data, but—“

That’s fine,” Elita interrupted. She waved Greenlight off. Her spark was thrilling, and she knew some of her tension had to come through in her voice from the way Greenlight flinched. She tried to lighten it with a smile. “Get everything you need to do this, start any prep you can’t do out in the field. Understood?”

“Yes, Elita!” Greenlight said, and quickly turned toward the haphazard pile of crates and lockers in the corner that was her “workshop.”

Chromia was staring at her, arms crossed over her chassis. Elita thought briefly about keeping quiet and waiting for Chromia to bring up her reservations, but that would only make Chromia more annoyed with her, if anything.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked, leaning against the console.

“You’re due for a recharge,” Chromia said as she stared Elita down. “So is Moonracer. You should stay here at the monitors. I’ll take Greenlight out to the site and bring Moonracer back in.”

“You’re trying to protect me.”

Chromia’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t deny it.

“Do you have any reason for it?” she asked, stepping forward and looking down at Chromia, who did not so much as twitch. “Something that Moonracer said?”

“It’s dangerous and you know it,” Chromia said, her voice tight. She was doing her best to keep her voice down, but her optics carried all of the fierce determination her volume could not. “I don’t think we should bring you anywhere near that Tower, not until we know more about what’s going on.”

“There’s not enough of us for me to sit around being guarded all day,” Elita said stiffly.

“And there’s not enough of us to keep on if you get fragged, either,” Chromia retorted. “We need to be ready to put our tires down and move. It’s been a million orbits since Shockwave pulled a move like this. A change after all this time doesn’t mean anything good for us.”

“Believe me, Chromia, I know.” Elita looked away from Chromia, out across the scraps of their base. In truth, calling it a base was generous. It was a room and a half that they’d shored up and installed scraps of equipment in, buried under the remains of a building. It was one of many bolt-holes they’d kept across the planet, ones that they’d been driven out of eventually, inevitably, losing supplies and nearly their sparks each time.

If Elita thought, hard, she could pull up uncorrupted memories of a life before this from the depths of her processor. There had been something worth fighting for, once—a home, a cause, a Prime. And before that, there had been a grand world, full of ‘formers and Towers and movement. Those files were compressed to the point of uselessness now. Memories of the dead had little place in scrounging for survival.

Chromia might be right. They should probably be hunkering down and preparing for whatever Shockwave turned up. But she had to wonder if this change in Shockwave’s nice, predictable pattern would let them continue on like they had. Even if they survived it, how many more orbital periods could they continue scraping by before their sparks gave up?  

“I’m still going.” Elita said firmly. “I want to see what’s going on for myself, and now’s the best time to do it, before things start escalating.” She stepped forward, and reached her hand out to Chromia’s pauldron. The metal was pitted and worn under her fingertips, more dulled silver than white and blue, at this point. It was still strong and solid to the touch, even as Chromia gave in and leaned against the contact. “I won’t go closer than our perimeter.”

Chromia shook her head, but she was unwinding and slumping further into the chair. “It’d be safer if you sent me with you,” she grumbled.

“We need someone observing, and we need whatever parts Firestar can find.” Elita squeezed Chromia’s pauldron before letting go. “Some quick reconnaissance and we’ll be right back. You won’t even know we’re gone.”

Chromia snorted, waving her away. “If you’re going to start with a rusting load of nonsense like that, you’d better get going,” she retorted. “That drone’s finally moving off again.”

Elita nodded. “Greenlight?” she asked, stepping over toward the lockers.

“I’m ready,” Greenlight said quickly, shuffling to her feet. She hung back as Elita led the way to the door, and the edges of her mouth seemed a little bit wobbly.

“It’ll be fine,” Elita told her, giving her steadiest smile as she went to the door. “It’ll just be a quick trip to gather data. We aren’t expecting any trouble. Moonracer and Chromia will warn us first.”

“Right,” Greenlight said, and managed a tremulous smile. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, but Elita didn’t comment. Compared to the rest of them, Greenlight left base rarely, as her skills were best used with their patched-together equipment. Some nerves were understandable.

The door screeched as they forced it open.

“I expect you both back in one piece!” Chromia said. Her optics lingered on Elita. There was nothing she could do but nod, and pull the door closed behind them again.

The path from their base was not an easy one to follow. It had to be, to properly blend in with the surrounding landscape of collapsed buildings and partially-sunken understructures. The area was tricky for Shockwave’s drones to canvas, which was part of the reason they’d chosen it, but it made for slow going. Elita had to help Greenlight up a few sections that she was too short to manage on her own. By the time they reached level ground, the both of them were sporting dust and new scuff marks.

 Elita got five steps away before she realized that Greenlight wasn’t following her. When she turned back to look, Greenlight’s hands were clenched at her sides again as she stared at the ground.

“Greenlight. _Greenlight._ ” Greenlight winced, but her optics did not lift. Elita forced herself not to clench her jaw, but gentled her voice. “We’ve got a mission to do. You need to follow me. I’ll take care of the rest, you understand?”

Greenlight nodded jerkily, then slowly lifted her optics, though she couldn’t quite meet Elita’s. It would have to do for now, Elita decided. Standing exposed like this, neither of them had the time to work through whatever was bothering Greenlight. She could have carried the smaller ‘former if she’d needed to, but she could hear footsteps trailing along behind her when she started to walk again.

Traveling through the ruins of Cybertron wasn’t pleasant or easy, but it was better than climbing out of the base’s hidden entrance. Elita took it slowly, dividing her attention between the uneven footing and scanning their surroundings for drones or seekers. She’d spent enough time out here while scavenging or setting cameras to know the best way, but she’d learned to keep her caution by now.

It was easy to keep track of her destination. Darkmount loomed, a grim, silent sentinel as it always was. That tower might be the only fully intact structure left on the entire planet, Elita thought. She kept looking at it as they worked their way closer, but any evidence of the tower lighting up was long gone. It was just as dim and unmoving as it had been the last time she saw it.

A crackle of static on her short-range comm had Elita stepping back to guard Greenlight.

“ _Elita!”_ Moonracer chirped. Her voice was tinny and crackly over the comm. _“About time. You brought Greenie?”_

 _“She wants to get some readings,”_ Elita responded. She mouthed ‘Moonracer’ to Greenlight, who slumped in relief. _“Where are you?”_

_“That one by the ridge, do you remember it? Where Firestar dented her fender—well, it was really more like she nearly caved in her engine block.”_

“ _Yes,”_ Elita cut her off quickly, “ _I remember it.”_ It was hard to forget. The incident in question had involved a frantic shootout that Firestar had very nearly not made it out of. It was only because their base at the time had been equipped with a working CR chamber that Firestar had made it out of that scrape alive.

_“Okay. Go there, then up a bit.”_

As far as attempts at speaking in code went, it was far from Moonracer’s worst. Elita sighed and beckoned Greenlight on.

It was easy to see why Moonracer had chosen this spot for her lookout point. The ridge gave a good view of the surrounding terrain, though it was not particularly high, and it was scattered with hiding places of the kind that the drones were trained to look in, and plenty that they weren’t. The ground was rough and pitted but not sinking down into the substructure of the planet. Here and there, walls or roofs remained intact on the remains of the buildings.

A light tapping noise drew Elita’s attention upward. She hissed. The building Moonracer had decided to use was all girders and framework and very little of everything else, but there she was, up on the remains of the second floor, beckoning the two of them forward. Greenlight darted forward, seeking out what looked like the rickety remains of some sort of staircase, but Elita was much more cautious.  Maybe the structure could handle lighter frames like Greenlight and Moonracer, but she could imagine the thing collapsing underneath her weight.

 _“I’m going to keep watch down here,”_ she commed, and received two brief pings of confirmation. She found a corner of the structure that had a remaining chunk of wall, just large enough to hide her from the road. She kept her sensors tuned for any disturbances, and listened to the snatches of conversation that filtered down from above. _“Moonracer, describe what happened to Greenlight. Have you spotted any drones in the sector?”_

 _“Ugh, no drones. And Darmount was just lights all over,”_ Moonracer said. Elita could hear one of the beams creak with whatever gesture Moonracer was currently making. _“It’s been so long since it’s done… well, anything! I nearly fell off the building!”_

 _“How long?”_ Greenlight asked. Having a puzzle to focus on apparently eased her fears, because she sounded much more confident.

_“Ummm…. Barely long enough for me to comm Chromia. It was just, poof, suddenly dark again.”_

Greenlight made a little humming sound, but didn’t respond for a while. Elita heard the scraping sounds of tools and the occasional shifting groan of the building, but little else. It was just as silent as it had been inside the base.

There were no tracks through the dust and rubble that would have indicated drone activity in this sector. That didn’t mean there weren’t sensors or other cameras in the area, but installing those would require something a little more sophisticated than Shockwave’s patrol drones. The tower was visible just over her shoulder, if she turned to look. Elita forced herself not to watch it. It would be hard to miss Darkmount lighting up again no matter what direction she was looking in.

Eventually, the light clatter from above stopped. _“The good news is, the space bridge wasn’t activated,”_ Greenlight said. _“I doubted it, from the short interval Moonracer reported, but there’s no sign of the radiation or tachyons that would accompany activation. I suspect that this was an equipment test. Perhaps a failed one, considering the fact that no test vortex was created, but I cannot say for certain what protocol Shockwave might be using here. Perhaps it was merely a diagnostic before running repairs.”_

 _“If he could get it running, how long do you think that would take him? Theoretically_.” Elita asked. Tension was gnawing at her spark. She clenched her fists against her thighs.

 _“A few rotations at least,”_ Greenlight answered. The shivery quality was back in her voice, and Elita could hear the creak of the structure, probably from Moonracer starting up a nervous fidget. _“Even if this test revealed the bridge to be in perfect condition, there are a number of calibrations that must be done, since the space bridge has not been used for so long, and the moon is not in an optimal rotation for using the space bridge. If he’s prudent, Shockwave will wait for a better alignment.”_

 _“We can at least count on Shockwave to be prudent,”_ Elita muttered. A muffled giggle burst out above her, tinged with nerves, before it was quickly silenced. _“You said you could set it up to ping back to our system. Is that all set?”_

 _“Everything else I have to do is back at base,”_ Greenlight said.

_“Good. We’re pulling back. Moonracer, you too. Shift’s over. Time to get some rest.”_

_“Yes, Elita,”_ the two femmes chorused. As the building began to creak again, signaling their descent, Elita finally turned to look over her shoulder.

Darkmount was a grim blade, a black-purple mark silhouetted against the ashcloud-gray of the sky. It sat amidst the dust and rubble. It looked just as it had for eons, impenetrable and undamaged. If it weren’t for Moonracer, Elita would never have known that the delicate balance of their survival was being pushed past the tipping point.

But they knew, Elita told herself. Maybe they didn’t have as much warning as they’d like, but they knew. Whatever Shockwave was going to pull, they could prepare for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _But thou shalt ever lie dead,_  
>  _nor shall there be any remembrance of thee then or thereafter,_  
>  _for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria;_  
>  _but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades,_  
>  _flitting among the shadowy dead._  
>  -Poetry from Sappho


	2. Don't Even Look Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst part of war is the waiting-- then things start happening, and keep happening, and you miss the waiting when you have a spare second to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! Things are starting to step up, and the runaway train is only going to keep moving from here. 
> 
> No additional warnings for this chapter.

Chromia was waiting for them at the chokepoint of the base entrance. She grinned at Moonracer, gave Greenlight a bracing slap on the back that made the smaller femme stagger, but her optics when she met Elita’s were steely, her mouth thin.

“Is Lancer up?” Elita asked, as Chromia ushered the other two along ahead of them.  

“She started checking over the console, since Greenlight was out,” Chromia said. She was trying to keep her voice low, which threw up a warning sign in Elita’s processor. “Circumspect” was far from Chromia’s natural state.

“Right,” she said slowly, as they caught up with Greenlight and Moonracer at the door. “Firestar report in while I was gone?”

“No. Should we call her in?” Chromia grunted, as she and Elita worked together to shove the door aside.

Lancer looked up from the console as they came in, her optics sharp and her expression even grimmer than Chromia’s. She looked first to Greenlight, then to Elita. It was hard to miss the aura of tension that filled the place—Greenlight was already hurrying toward her conjunx, and Moonracer had hesitated in her usual enthusiastic end-of-shift chatter.

“Not necessary,” Elita said finally. “Brief me first. No, wait, let me—” She raised her voice and turned to the rest of the room. “Greenlight, start setting up that ping on the console. Moonracer, head to recharge. Lancer, Chromia, with me.”

The gathered ‘bots nodded and began to move, though not without a concerned glance on Greenlight’s part, and a curious one on Moonracer’s. Elita ignored both, and beckoned the two warriors out into the passageway and out of hearing. With Lancer and Chromia both this grim, she didn’t want to risk either of the more skittish members of the team overhearing before she’d had time to process the news.

Chromia didn’t immediately follow. Instead, she forced the door closed. “Don’t want anyone eavesdropping,” she said, grimly echoing Elita’s thoughts. Lancer nodded along, and only turned back to Elita when the door was firmly shut.

 “We’ve missed some of the transmissions from Darkmount,” Lancer started, blunt and dour. There was a pinched look to her expression that matched Chromia’s growing scowl. “We know it happened sometime in the last eighteen planetary rotations, because that was Shockwave’s last regular broadcast, but I couldn’t tell you when.”

Chromia pulled out a lump of cracked circuit boards and frayed wires. “This thing—“

“The transceiver.” Lancer interrupted.

“The transceiver broke,” Chromia continued, stiffly.

 _In half_. Elita stared at the two jagged pieces in Chromia’s hand and resisted the urge to press her face into her hands. “Is it fixed now?” she asked.

“It is,” Lancer said. Neither she nor Chromia looked particularly pleased to be announcing this. Elita kept silent and let her expression do the prompting for her, but Chromia only crossed her arms, her jaw tight. Lancer couldn’t seem to look up to meet Elita’s optics all of a sudden. Instead, she was staring down at the transceiver like it was going to save her from whatever came next.

Lancer was the one who broke first. “When I finished doing the fix, we caught the end of a transmission from Darkmount.”

All the tension coiled through Chromia finally seemed to snap. Her hands tensed, her optics flashed, and she looked ready to hit something, anything, if only that would help. “It’s Megatron, Elita. He’s the reason Shockwave activated the space bridge.”

It seemed to Elita, in that moment, that the cracked metal plating of Cybertron’s surface slid out from under her. Her spark went briefly and curiously numb, though her HUD started throwing warnings about systems overclocking. There was a pressure alert warning from her thigh plating. She couldn’t feel it. It took a moment for her to realize that she’d grabbed at it hard enough to dent the plating. Slowly, carefully, she forced her fingers to uncurl.

“Play it for me,” she heard her voice saying to them, clear and even and blank.

 Chromia and Lancer were still watching her with complicated expressions, so she took a moment to ensure hers was smooth. “Lancer,” she said. “The communication. Ping it to me.”

Finally, Lancer nodded.

The quality was staticky and distorted, just as all of their intercepted communications were. But it was clear enough to hear the words, and Shockwave’s familiar voice, much more lively than they were used to hearing from his periodic distress signals into the uncaring cosmos. _“—energon in any form is the limiting factor on Cybertron, my Lord. With the proper energy supply, I can begin production of other necessary materials in short order.”_

_“Very good, Shockwave.”_

Even anticipating it, the sound of Megatron’s voice activated every combat-ready protocol Elita had. He sounded every bit the would-be tyrant, just as she remembered him, and she had to pull her attention away from another slew of HUD alerts to focus on what he was saying, and how.

_“You will receive your energon at the designated time. Soundwave will coordinate with you on the alignment.”_

_“You do not anticipate any difficulties, my Lord?”_ Shockwave asked.

Megatron snorted. Elita had to relax her hand when her HUD popped up a few warnings of surface damage on her thigh plating again. _“You underestimate me, Shockwave. You shall have your energon, make no mistake. Megatron out.”_

Then silence.

“Right,” Elita said slowly, testing out her voice. Chromia and Lancer were both watching her, waiting. She couldn’t fall apart here. She wouldn’t. Her spark still felt like it was floating free of her frame, but she focused on relaxing her hands, and maintaining her expression. “Anything you picked up before you started recording?”

Lancer shook her helm. “That was all,” she said, her voice subdued.

“Elita—“ Chromia started, but she trailed off with a quiet sound of frustration.

Elita knew exactly how Chromia felt. It was very nearly too much to take in. She might nearly wish to have discovered this alone, just to have time to process, but she knew just what kind of dark path that could lead to.  Instead, she focused on the weight of Lancer and Chromia’s optics. She would reassure them first. Her spark could have its say later.

“We knew to expect something like this the moment the space bridge activated. The moment Shockwave got contact from beyond Cybertron, the balance here would tip. We’ll continue with our preparations. But from the sound of that message, we might still have more time than I feared.”

“You mean…”

“Megatron mentioned sending energon, not troops,” Elita said. “I’m sure there’s nothing he’d like more than to make his triumphant return to Cybertron. If he’s sending energon and demanding supplies in return, then there’s something that’s more important to him.”

“That doesn’t mean Shockwave won’t come after us,” Chromia said, still scowling. “With more energon he can power up more of those drones of his. Just because Megatron’s not coming through doesn’t mean we’re getting off easy.”

“No, we’re not,” Elita agreed. “But we can deal with drones. Begin the preparations for moving bases—we may not have to, but I don’t want to be caught off-guard and lose all our supplies if Shockwave gets aggressive before we expect it. If things start going up in flames we’re moving to the location we scouted out by the Rust Narrows. Start transferring energon stores this shift. We’ll want more cameras up, around the base and on Darkmount. The more warning we have, the better. Tell Greenlight to start backing up everything she needs on that console. I don’t want us to lose anything during this move.”

Lancer was looking more relieved, but Chromia’s optics were still resting heavily on her, accusatory.

“Lancer,” Elita said. “Can I trust you to break the news to Greenlight?”

She bit her lip plate, but nodded. “She won’t like it, but I’ll keep her busy,” she said.

“ _I_ don’t like it, either,” Elita said dryly. “We’ll handle telling the others. You see to Greenlight.”

Taking the dismissal for what it was, Lancer nodded and retreated, after wrenching the door open then closed again behind her.

Elita was left facing Chromia, a heavy silence swallowing the space between them.

“This isn’t a solution, Elita,” Chromia said finally. “This is a stopgap. This is delaying.”

Her frame was beginning to feel buzzy, like she’d been hit with a shot of some booster. She curled her fingers to try and quell the shivery feelings. “I know,” she said. “But there’s more to the story than we know. I need to get more information before I decide on a bigger plan.”

“No,” Chromia said. This time, she took a step forward, and grabbed Elita by the shoulder. Her grip was like a vice, and her voice simmered with intensity. “You know exactly what we need to do. You just don’t want to do it.”

“Chromia—“

“We’re going to have to destroy the space bridge, Elita. It’s the only way we’ll survive this.”

“No.” Elita stepped back, pulling away from the hand on her shoulder. “If the space bridge is destroyed, we die, Chromia. Maybe it’ll take another million orbital periods, but if that bridge goes down, we rust out with the rest of this Primus-forsaken rock. That’s final, do you understand me?”

Chromia looked ready to hit something. “Understood,” she finally gritted out.

“Good.” Elita stepped away. She could feel her legs wobble, and stiffened her struts. Her HUD was popping up more amber warnings at her, and the odd distance between her spark and her processor seemed to be dissolving in a way that left her feeling like she’d just come out of a firefight. _Be a leader, be a leader, be a leader. Pull it together, Elita._ “Wake me if anything happens.”

She didn’t wait around to hear Chromia’s response.

-

She was startled out of recharge by a hand on her shoulder.

“Elita, Elita! C’mon, time to go! Firestar’s back and everything.”

Then, without even a pause, Moonracer began to clamber over her frame.

Elita held still as Moonracer clambered over her like a particularly industrious cassette. Her spark and frame felt equally heavy, like her metals had suddenly transmutated into lead and left her weighed down without the energy to shift herself. She’d done herself no favors by forcing her recharge protocols to activate, but she’d have to live with the consequences.

And the dreadful expectation of ruining Moonracer’s good mood.

She didn’t suddenly remember the events of the previous shift so much as the barely-restrained dread settled back in over her spark once more. She’d expected her recharge to be haunted by fragments of recollection—that message fragment playing over and over in her helm, or fragments of battles, her last glimpses of the Decepticon ship rising away from Cybertron, chasing after the diminishing glimmer of the Ark.

She’d never known what had happened to either ship, none of them had. All they’d known was that the Ark had abruptly gone silent, then remained so for longer and longer, until they’d all stopped looking to the stars from the pain of it. They’d had even less evidence of the Nemesis’s fate, just Shockwave’s regular broadcasts, hopelessly casting out into the silent depths of space. She’d thought herself prepared for the reality of all those deaths.

But now…

Knowing the fate of only one ship was worse than knowing both, she thought. It meant she couldn’t do anything less than hope.

She could hear the echo of Moonracer’s chatter from the main room, and forced herself upright. If Firestar was back, then she had a meeting to call to order, and a much more immediate reality to confront. Optics off the stars and on the enemy in front of her. Chromia would be glad for that.

The main room was full when she stepped out of the little closet that held the recharge berth. Moonracer had apparently bounded straight over toward the energon tanks, and paused in filling a cube with her dimly-glowing energon ration just long enough to give Elita a cheery wave.

“Up and at ‘em, ‘Lita!”

Greenlight and Lancer had set themselves up in front of the console, pressed shoulder to shoulder in the chair that technically wasn’t large enough for both of them. Neither seemed to care. Greenlight was curled up under Lancer’s protective arm, and both of them had pale optics and strained expressions. Greenlight looked on the edge of speaking, but she bit her lip when Lancer’s arm tightened around her. Elita gave her a solemn nod, though she could tell it did little to settle the smaller ‘former.

Chromia had posted herself next to the entrance, and was scowling down at the floor. She didn’t raise her helm to meet Elita’s optics.

“Leave that energon for a bit, Moonracer,” Elita said. “We’re having a meeting first.”

“As long as it’s quick,” Firestar rasped. “No offense, Elita, but I’m liable to start idling any moment.”

 

The last member of their team was sitting a few lengths from Chromia, slumped down against the wall in a pose that screamed weariness. Her paint was dulled nearly to tan and brown by the dust and scrapes from two shifts out scavenging, and she looked ready to put herself in recharge without even bothering to make it to the berth.

They all looked gray and scuffed and tired, Elita thought. A few million orbital periods ago, she would have been alarmed to see them in such a state. Now, it was only a relief that they didn’t show any signs of rusting away.

“I’ll try,” Elita said. “Shift reports first. Greenlight, Lancer, you finish making those changes?”

Greenlight nodded. “It’s running just fine. Lancer took care of the…” she glanced hesitantly at Moonracer and Firestar. The former followed the exchange with a slight frown, though the latter didn’t seem to notice. “The things around the base.”

“Good.” Elita looked to Chromia next, who just grunted.

“Perimeter’s as good as it’ll get.”

That was all she was likely to get out of Chromia in this mood, so she let it slide, even though she could feel the tension mounting in the room. Firestar was starting to catch on too, from the confused look she was shooting their second-in-command. Best to get through this quickly.

“Firestar? Any luck?”

“Mostly odds and ends.” Firestar shifted with a groan and started lining her haul up on the floor in front of her. “Managed to find some extra solder, though, and some energon converter parts. These look like ‘em, anyway. Plenty of wires, too.”

“Any oil, any cameras?” Chromia asked.

“Neither,” Firestar shrugged. “Some repulsors for an antigrav sled, though. Oh! And a stock of emergency internal patches.” These she pulled out with a flourish and a grin. “I’ll leave ‘em with you, Greenlight,” she said, tossing them toward the other femme. Lancer snatched them out of the air and settled them in her sparkmate’s lap.

“Good work,” Elita said, meaning it. “Where were those? Any hint that there might be more?”

Firestar shrugged. “Can’t tell. Found what looks like the remains of a factory. Pretty picked over. I’m sure there’s more there, but I doubt it has much of any one thing in particular.”

“Mark it out on the map,” Elita ordered. “If it hasn’t been picked clean yet, it might be worth a second visit.”

Normally, this would be where the meeting would end. Firestar and Chromia would go rest, and she would direct the rest of them as needed. Everyone seemed to sense the tension in the room, though. Firestar remained in her place, and even Moonracer hadn’t returned to filling her energon cube. All optics were on Elita.

“Some of you already know this,” she said slowly. “Last night, we caught the end of a transmission from Darkmount, and what appeared to be a test of the space bridge.” She paused, saw three faces go tense and still, and two others tighten with confusion. “Thanks to that last transmission, we know why. Shockwave has made contact with Megatron.”

A flinch traveled through the room. Chromia’s jaw tightened so hard that Elita could almost hear it creak. Greenlight and Lancer pressed together like magnets. Firestar’s pedes scraped against the floor as she started to push herself upright, and Moonracer too started forward with a shrill, “Megatron?”

“So far, he’s sending energon as assistance to Shockwave,” Elita continued, backing her voice with steel to speak over the shocked mutterings running through her team. “We haven’t heard any reports of troop movements, but that might change.  We’ll be preparing to move bases just in case, and we’re increasing monitoring on all fronts. Greenlight and Lancer already started on some of that last shift. Moonracer and I will put up additional cameras for Darkmount and around the new base this shift. Lancer, you’re responsible for dividing up the energon stores. Greenlight, you’re on monitoring. Everything else proceeds as usual, especially shifts. I don’t want anyone missing recharge over this, understand?”

She was met by a ragged chorus of agreement and nods, but the unease did not dissipate. She watched them shuffle in place, exchange looks with one another, and waited.

It was Moonracer who finally piped up. “Elita, what’s stopping him from… I mean, if Megatron is still alive…”

“We don’t know. Trust me, I’d be a much happier bot if we did,” Elita said, shaking her helm. “But we can’t count on anything. Megatron reappearing after so long could mean any number of things. The only way to learn more is to keep monitoring Shockwave’s transmissions. We may be able to learn more about the fates of… the other Autobots, but don’t get your hopes up.”

She didn’t dare try to say Optimus’s name. She was certain her voice would break.

She could see the way hope threaded through the room anyway, in the way Greenlight and Lancer squeezed each other, in the slump of Firestar’s shoulders. Moonracer’s face was all but aglow with it. She ached at the sight, even though she could not blame them for it. Hope was a spark they’d had precious little of for far too long. Given the chance in the face of despair, it was addictive.

“You’ve got your orders,” she told them. “We know how bad the situation is. If any of you need to talk, ping me. Chromia, Firestar, recharge. I mean it. Now move, all of you.”

Chromia hauled Firestar to her feet, dragging both of them toward the berth. She stalled, slightly, when passing Elita, but she still couldn’t meet her commander’s optics.

Elita risked reaching out to squeeze Chromia’s shoulder. She was rewarded with a moment of stillness, before Chromia pulled away once more.

-

“ _Elita, there’s a drone patrolling by sectors twelve and thirteen. It doesn’t look like it’s going to head in your direction any time soon, but you probably shouldn’t head over that way,”_ Lancer hailed her.

 _“Understood,”_ Elita commed back. _“Let me know if that changes.”_ Then, with a final glance around, she stepped out from the tunnels in the rubble and out under the stars.

There was no sign of clouds or smog, the first of which was always a possibility with the Rainmakers (though they hadn’t been seen in a while. Stasis, or gone? They’d never found out) but the latter of which had slowly disappeared from Cybertron as the cities, then the forts, were removed from the planet. The stars were as clear and cold as Elita had ever seen them.

She’d never bothered with the stars as Ariel. In lower Iacon where the docks and her shabby apartment had been, the smog and the city lights often reduced the sky to a yellow haze.

After, with the destruction of the docks, after Alpha Trion and Optimus and the Autobots, she’d been high enough up to see the stars, but she’d had precious little time to admire them. Only after Cybertron had been abandoned had she had the time to watch, and even now she didn’t like to. Her spark would feel as lost and distant as those stars, at the times like those.

So she turned her optics away, scouring the rubble for any sign of spying from Shockwave’s meager forces or drones, and set out. Hopefully the task of placing the cameras would give her time to clear her head before returning to the others.

She drove the sections where the road was clear, and walked the rest when the rubble made the going too treacherous. When she got close to the building Moonracer had been using as a vantage point, she gave up using her alt-mode completely in favor of going by pede, watching for locations among the ruined buildings that might have good vantage points and conceal the little cameras from view.

It was slow going, particularly since she had to pause and listen periodically, to make sure that the noise she might make climbing and securing the cameras wouldn’t be attracting any unwanted attention. She traced a rough perimeter around the Tower, looking for spots that would offer the best view of the space bridge. It meant a lot of climbing and grappling with rubble, and by the time she finished it, she was exhausted, dusty and scuffed. She’d found a few potentially useful components to store in her subspace, at least. Even better, Lancer had called in some time ago to note that they’d gotten the monitoring equipment working as best they could, she and Greenlight would keep an eye on the space bridge, and that the drone had passed out of the cameras’ range in the direction they’d expected.

She’d just installed the last camera in its place—the skeletal remains of a squat two-story warehouse that remained sturdy enough for her to climb and shadowy enough that the camera lens wouldn’t be immediately obvious—when Darkmount flared like a beacon behind her.

Elita bit her glossa to smother a curse. Hastily she ducked back until she was concealed from the base’s line of sight by one of the building’s crumbling walls. Then she dimmed the sensitivity on her optics and peeked back out at the Tower again.

The light wasn’t floodlights, she realized slowly. It was a beam that shot forth into the sky in a dizzying array of colors. The beam extended up into space, so bright that it seemed to drown out the stars.

The space bridge was active.

Greenlight and Lancer hadn’t contacted her to report any transmissions from the Tower, but that didn’t necessarily mean that something had gone wrong. Even if their equipment was working perfectly, there was no telling how much Megatron and Shockwave had arranged before they’d realized they needed to make repairs to their detection systems.

There was nothing she could do about it here, other than hunker down and watch. A fully active space bridge meant that Shockwave would have all of his drones on alert to prevent the her team from interfering—as if they could—so Elita didn’t dare send a comm back to base. Instead, she held the camera steady, and recorded everything her optics could catch to share with her team. It wasn’t much, especially since she was too far away to tell anything about what was going on at the entrance to the Space bridge, but her optics weren’t suited to zooming in and sniping the way Moonracer’s were. They’d have to make do with what she could get here.

She was beginning to wonder just how much energon Shockwave had in reserve that he could power that thing for so long when the beam vanished again, disappearing so quickly that it left sparkling afterimages to glitch up her optical feed. Elita shook her helm and made a hurried descent down the bare struts of the building, sliding down it so quickly her hands threw up sparks as they ground against the metal. She couldn’t throw herself into a running transformation the way Moonracer could, but the moment her pedes were on the ground she traded them for tires.

It still took her longer than she’d like to get back to base. There were piles of rubble to stumble over, and roads that were more slag than surface. She still had to be wary of drones, especially now. The last thing they needed was for her to get herself slagged from being careless.

She only dared to open her comms when she was out of Darkmount’s scanning range, hidden by the crest of the ridge. “ _Lancer, this is Elita. What’s your status?”_

Lancer, bless her, was straight to the point. “ _Elita! Good. We didn’t pick up any transmissions beforehand, but the cameras caught the space bridge.”_

“ _Did you catch anyone coming through?”_ Elita demanded as she slipped through a broken building down to the conduits that were the last leg of the trip back to their little fortified bunker.

“ _Some. A few of the Nemesis crew,”_ Lancer reported. “ _None of them stayed—but they brought energon, like you said.”_

“ _I’ll be there in a few_ ”, she said, and cut the line.

She hurried the last few tunnels to the doorway and found Lancer there waiting for her.

“Firestar and Chromia are still recharging,” she reported, knocking the heavy door to help it slide on its tracks before engaging the lock behind them. “We got some footage of it. Nemesis crew who were confirmed alive are Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Astrotrain. And there was another transmission while you were on your way back.”

Elita cursed quietly as she came into the main room. “That probably means Starscream at the least,” she said. Greenlight was still hunched over the console, tapping wildly at the keys, and Lancer quickly rejoined her there. “What was the transmission?”

“Megatron again,” Lancer told her. “We caught the whole thing this time. Should we—“

“Play it,” Elita ordered. Greenlight nodded mutely and tapped at a few keys.

 _“Operation successful, my lord,”_ Shockwave said. Even his inflectionless voice managed to sound smugly pleased. Elita’s plating crawled. _“The space bridge is operating within the estimated perameters.”_

 _“Excellent!”_ Megatron rasped. “ _You have done well, my loyal servant. We have another raid prepared within five local planetary rotations. You will have more energon then.”_

There was a hesitation, just long enough that Elita thought that might be the end of it.

 _“My Lord,”_ Shockwave said. _“I do not mean to question your plans—but when do you expect to return to Cybertron?”_

There was a derisive snort. _“Can you not handle an empty planet yourself, Shockwave? No, we must secure our energon supply here. I wish to see Cybertron revitalized before I make my triumphant return.  In the meantime, your priority is to begin manufacture of weaponry to arm our defenses here. This planet may be rich in energy, but the materials here are primitive.”_

There seemed to be the slightest tremor of concern in Shockwave’s voice, though Elita might be imagining it. “ _Of course, my lord. As you command.”_

 _“Soon, my most loyal servant,”_ Megatron said. _“The local pests may be more resilient than anticipated, but they will soon be crushed beneath the power of the Decepticons, and their energy will be ours for the taking.”_

Another moment, and the recording finally clicked to an end.

Greenlight was looking between Elita and the console, fidgeting with a piece of scrap, as Lancer watched her. “Elita, that’s… good, right?” she asked. “Megatron isn’t coming here.”

“Hm.” Elita kept her optics on the console. “We’ll have to find out more about whatever local pests are giving him trouble. Seems like the Decepticons have found an inhabited planet to set up on. It’s odd for them to pick a place without clearing it, first…” She trailed off, and shook her helm. “Regardless. This is the confirmation we needed that he’s not making a move on Cybertron just yet. Show me those images?”

“We’ve gotten all the footage together,” Greenlight said, tapping at a few keys. “It’s enough to be recognizable, even though the quality is poor.”

“There’s Skywarp,” Lancer said, leaning forward to point at the blurry images as Greenlight started the playback. “Then Thundercracker, and Astrotrain.” Her finger followed the two across the screen. “You can see that they all brought energon along. I counted—there are at least twenty-seven concentrated cubes there, six from Skywarp and Thundercracker, and the rest from Astrotrain.”

“That’s a lot of energon for a Seeker’s storage,” Elita observed. “Frame changes?”

“Their frames have changed from their last specs, as far as I can recall,” Greenlight agreed. “The space bridge’s emissions seemed to reflect that, too. The subspace to mass ratios were much different. It’s difficult to say with the footage, but their alt modes didn’t look like any Cybertronian designs I’m familiar with.”

“Con innovation, maybe,” Elita said, but she could see what Greenlight meant. They were too… clunky. It was almost primitive. “Or something stolen from those “local pests” Megatron was talking about.”

Lancer threw a look toward the dark corner of the berthroom. “Elita, should we…”

“No. They need their rest. I’ll let Chromia know when this shift ends,” Elita said firmly. “Have you finished dividing up the energon?”

Lancer nodded. She looked, for a moment, like she was about to speak again, but thought better of it.

“Then start moving it to the Rust Narrows location. Check in with Moonracer on those perimeter cameras on your way out. I’m going to start working on our defenses here. Greenlight, monitoring.”

“Yes, Elita.” Greenlight’s voice was a thin waver. “I… do you think Shockwave will…”

Elita grimaced. “He’ll be after us,” she said, reluctantly. “If he has any sense he’ll be sending out his Rainmakers and refining his drone searches. He doesn’t know where we are, which is to our advantage. We know this planet better than he does, after all this time. We won’t be caught.” She mustered up a smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep us safe.”

The words didn’t ring with truth. She could see that they didn’t work, not fully, but Greenlight tried her best to smile back, and Lancer nodded.

“Right,” Greenlight said, softly. “I know you’ll do everything you can, Elita.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You've traveled this long_  
>  _You just have to go on_  
>  _Don't even look back to see_  
>  _How far you've come_  
>  _Though your body is bending_  
>  _Under the load_  
>  _There is nowhere to stop_  
>  _Anywhere on this road_  
>  -Anywhere on this road, Lhasa de Sela


End file.
